"Well, then the military would be out of a job." Parker smirks over at him, and I instantly want to throttle her. "And war is never necessary."
Josh twists the pen violently between his fingers. "I don't think that war will ever become obsolete. There are some who will not be reasoned with."
Parker shakes her head. "You're not going to argue about the power of belief again, are you?"
He swallows hard, his fingers twisting that pen like he's going to snap it in half. "I wouldn't underestimate it. How else can you explain mothers willingly sending their children to be suicide bombers?"
"Mental illness." Parker shrugs. "Clearly, only someone who is clinically insane would send their child off to die. It's contrary to what we know about human nature. We are fundamentally selfish, and we are trying to pass our genes along to the next generation. Killing them doesn't make any sense."
"I have to agree with Parker." I shoot Josh an apologetic glance. "It doesn't make any sense. Humans are selfish."
Josh shakes his head. "I disagree. He has no greater love than he who would give his life for another."
"You're quoting a religious text to make your argument?" Parker asks, and her words are laced with skepticism and a barely concealed sneer.
But Josh doesn't back down in the face of her contempt. "If we accept that there are some fundamentals about human nature buried in religious texts, then yes, a religious statement makes my argument. We're not selfish—not like rational choice theory would have us believe."
"If we’re not selfish, what are we?" Professor Quinn asks. "And what does this have to do with violence?"
Josh is practically vibrating now. His back is tight, the muscles in his neck bunched and tense. "We're social, sir. And that means I will gladly lay down my life so that my brothers can come home, even though we share not one drop of the same blood."
A slow smile spreads across Quinn's face. "Mr. Douglas raises the fundamental problem of violence—how does it enable social cohesion while at the same time being so destructive?"
Parker's hand shoots up. "Wait a sec. Is violence declining or not?"
Quinn clicks on a slide that shows a single graph with a massive spike in it toward the right side. "From the data that we have—and mind you the data is actually quite terrible—what we see is that violence tends to hover around this trend line. But periodically, there are spikes. The last great spikes were World Wars I and II. This suggests that violence is neither increasing nor decreasing, but rather is merely returning to its normal levels after a massive global conflict."
I frown, thoroughly confused by the entire discussion. "What are we supposed to take away from this?"
Quinn flips to an image of a mushroom cloud over an island. "This class is centered on violence. But violence and religion are intertwined, it seems, so we cannot have a discussion about one without the other. It's easy to accept the argument the author makes that violence is declining because we want to accept it. But if religion is merely lying dormant—and all demographic information seems to suggest that this may be only a passing trend, then it means we should expect to see a greater resurgence of religion, not a decrease."
"Which means a resurgence in violence," Josh says quietly. "More war."
Parker shakes her head and shoots her hand into the air. "Sir, I have to disagree. The current generation is the least religious in history. They do not identify as religious. How will their children take up this belief system if it’s not taught to them at a young age?"
Just like that, the light bulb goes off. "It makes perfect sense. How many kids are you going to have?" I ask Parker.
Parker shrinks from the question. Just a little but it's enough that I notice. I didn't mean to strike a nerve, but clearly I did.
"Right. And how much of the American population is in college right now?"
She shrugs. "I don't know. Half?"
"Less than a third," I tell her. "Which means that all those people out there not going to college are likely having babies. If even half of their babies are religious, it’s more than any of your babies because you didn't have any. Religious people and less educated people have more babies. Which means that when their kids grow up, there's a strong likelihood that they will be religious or uneducated just like their parents because we know that parental religiosity influences their children's."
I'm trying to focus on Parker, but it's Josh who is claiming my attention. The discussion is about violence, but damn if I don't feel actual violence radiating off him in pulsating waves.
I touch his shoulder as the focus of the discussion shifts away from Josh and me. "What's wrong?"
He shakes his head once, and I let him be. Now is not the time. But something about this conversation set him off.
A cold worry slides down my spine to wrap around my belly.
Chapter 13
Josh